


ghosts of smiles past

by casbean



Series: Askbean Prompts [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse (Supernatural), I don't know how to tag this, Love Confessions, M/M, as happy an ending as endverse can get, just another endverse fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 06:03:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17595830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casbean/pseuds/casbean
Summary: “Stay away from him.”Cas looks at Dean, who has just entered his tent.“Stay away from who?”“Me. I mean – past me. Him.”





	ghosts of smiles past

Cas smiles a lot, these days. It used to be such a rare sight, like a solar eclipse, except the exact opposite; Cas’ smile was the sun shining in an otherwise constantly darkened world.

Dean only witnessed it a few times through the years. He’s pretty sure that Cas’ first smile was the exact moment he fell in love. Warmth radiated out of him like a beam, the clouds parted and Dean’s entire world flipped upside down.

Cas didn’t smile often, but it was always world-shattering.

Now, Cas smiles all the time. He laughs even more. But it’s not the same. His eyes are empty. As beautiful and blue as they always were, but so fucking empty. He grins lazy and easy, he laughs like there’s not a care left in the world. There’s no warmth inside of him anymore.

When the old Dean appears, freshly out of 2009, Cas smiles. He smiles like he used to. He smiles soft, and warm, and a little bit sad, and Dean feels something he hasn’t felt in years.

It hurts. 

 

“Stay away from him.”

Cas looks at Dean, who has just entered his tent.

“Stay away from who?”

“Me. I mean – past me.  _ Him _ .”

Cas goes back to cleaning his gun, a little smile tugging at his lips. 

“What?” 

“Nothing. I like past you, Dean.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cas laughs. “It means exactly what I said.”

Cas can feel the way Dean is looking at him. It bores through him, and it would be painful, if he had any pain left to feel.

“We don’t know if he’s what he says he is. I don’t want you near him.”

“He’s you, Dean. He’s not dangerous.”

It kind of hurts, to see this old Dean. Cas had almost forgotten how Dean used to be. So much softer around the edges. So full of hope, of fight – the good kind of fight. The kind who believed they’ll always find a way, that they’ll live, the kind that believed in saving people, hunting things. Who believed there was a right thing to do, always.

Cas has forgotten a lot of things since his fall, his human brain now unable to still possess all the knowledge in the universe. But he remembers, with acute clarity, how it felt to touch Dean’s soul. To bathe in its light. To rebuild him, atom by atom. He misses being able to feel it whenever he was around him, his grace buzzing with the memory of their union.

Now he feels nothing, or at least he tries to.

“Look, I know me, and I don’t trust me.”

Cas rolls his eyes.

“I can take care of myself.”

“ _ Cas _ –” Dean’s voice is harsh as Cas turns his back to him and picks up the next gun to clean.

Cas stops. When he turns around, he sees something in Dean’s eyes he thought didn’t exist anymore. A light, soft, fragile emotion.

“He loves you,” Dean whispers, like saying it out loud will finally end the world for good. “He’s in love with you.”

Cas is definitely not numb enough.

“And when he sees what – what I’ve done to you, what you’ve become because of me–”

Dean shakes his head, word getting caught in his throat.

“You’re not responsible for what i’ve ‘ _ become _ ’, Dean.”

“You lost everything because of me.”

“It wasn’t because of you. I agreed with your choice. And no matter what I’ve lost… I would follow you to the end of the world, you know that.”

Dean doesn’t look at him.

“And it ain’t right.”

“I’m a being of free will, and this is what I chose to do with it.”

Dean shakes his head, purses his lips. Cas can feel the tension in his shoulders. He hopes Dean will visit him tonight. There’s a lot of things he could do to ease his pain. But he doubts it. Dean barely even looks at him anymore, even on a good day. 

“Just stay away.”

“I’d like him to know,” Cas says as Dean is about to step out.

“Know what?”

Cas speaks low and gentle. 

“That I love him, too. That I’ve - that I’ve loved him since the beginning. That I’ll love him, always. Until the end.”

Dean’s jaw tightens. His eyelids shake. 

“He knows.”

His eyes are so sad when they finally land on Cas that the ex-angel stops breathing.

“He knows that, Cas. He just… can’t.”

Cas takes a deep breath.

“Fine, I’ll stay away. Will you?” 

Dean doesn’t answer and walks out of the tent.

 

The other Dean has been gone for less than an hour, back to his own timeline, and Cas’ smiles have gone back to being the empty ghost of what they used to be. But there’s something lingering, in the way he looks at Dean. 

In the words he speaks, just when he’s about to leave his tent again to go back to his own. Alone.

“I miss him.” 

It’s low, hushed, like Cas is afraid of what Dean will do if he hears. Like he’s afraid of who Dean’s become.

Dean stopped feeling a long time ago. He stopped caring about other people’s lives, he stopped feeling guilty about the choices he makes. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary. Not feeling is a constant fight, and ongoing effort, helped by how cruel the world has become and a healthy dose of drowning his feelings in cheap home-brewed booze every day. 

Not feeling is more difficult than ever when he’s around Cas. He’s the only thing - the only one - that still makes Dean weak. Because feelings are a weakness, here. Feelings get people killed. Feelings let the Devil rule the world.

But after depriving himself for so long, Dean also finds that feelings are addictive. The flutter in his chest, the tightness of his throat. The desperate need to be alright, just for a moment.

He catches Cas’ hand as he’s about to leave and brings him back with a gentleness he hasn’t shown in years.

Cas blinks in surprise when their eyes meet, when their chests press together. He touches Dean slowly, like he’s afraid Dean will wake up from whatever trance he must be in.

Dean knocks their foreheads together, exhales. His entire body unwinds when he feels the way Cas lets himself go against him.

The ghost of a old, familiar smile stretches on Cas’ lips. It’s brighter than the sun, and feels Dean with a warmth he hasn’t felt in years. The world is going to end, and if they ever manage to take down the Devil, they’ll go down with him. 

But in the meantime, Dean is going to do everything he can to see that smile every single day.

“I know,” Dean murmurs, before closing the distance between them. “I miss him too.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr [here (writing blog)](http://casbeanwrites.tumblr.com/) or [here](http://casbean.tumblr.com/) :)


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